When it comes to debates, the stakes – and the questions – don’t get much bigger than this: Where do we humans come from? What or who made us?

These were the weighty issues as famed ‘Science Guy’ Bill Nye squared off this week against renowned creationist Ken Ham. The genesis of the debate, held Tuesday at the Creation Museum in Kentucky, stemmed from a YouTube video of Nye, CEO of the Pasadena-based Planetary Society, blasting creationism a few years ago. Each man had 30 minutes. But the idea of Noah’s ark and the great flood seemed to preoccupy them both.

Nye said that if the flood did occur 4,000 years ago, as Ham suggests, and there are 680 layers of snow ice in the Arctic, as studies show, then there would be 170 winter-summer cycles every year.

Nye also said that trees measured to age 9,500 years also do not align with the theory that the Earth is only 4,000 years old. He ended his counter-rebuttal by looking into the camera and begging for "scientifically literate students in the community for a better tomorrow."

Ham pointed out an earlier point that Nye made regarding animal teeth and evolution, and how a lion's teeth are as sharp as they are because they are meant for meat-eating.

"If it has sharp teeth, it doesn't mean it's a meat-eater, it means it has sharp teeth," Ham said.

Ham talked about experimental and observational approaches to science, drawing on Darwin's finches for example, which are displayed inside The Creation Museum. However, Ham maintains they evolved from other finches.

"It's not that the evidences are different," Ham said. "It's a battle of the same evidence in regard to the past. That's really the difference when it comes down to it."

Check out the video below for more on the debate, then tell us what you think of the ongoing duel between science and creationism in the comments.

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